DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on March 17, 2026 has been entered.
Claims 1 and 3-6 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground of rejection based on Applicant’s amended claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (WO2022/060201A1)(“Park”) in view of Di Girolamo et al. (US 2023/0014303)(“Di Girolamo”), in further view of Kang et al. (US 2023/0269820(“Kang”).
As per claim 1, Park teaches a … communication control method comprising:
transmitting, by the first user equipment (i.e., “first apparatus”, see abstract), an RRC reconfiguration sidelink message including configuration information related to a configuration of discontinuous reception in the sidelink communication of the second user equipment (see abstract, i.e., “transmitting a first [RRC] message including a first sidelink discontinuous reception (SL DRX) configuration to the second device” and/or “transmitting a third message including a second SL DRX configuration to the second device”. Also note that the messages are sent over an established “PC5 radio resource connection (RRC)” and thus the first message anticipates an RRC reconfiguration sidelink message);
receiving, by the second user equipment, the RRC reconfiguration sidelink message Id.;
in response to the second user equipment accepting the configuration according to the configuration information, performing by the second user equipment, discontinuous reception according to the configuration information (see abstract, i.e., “receiving a fourth message for accepting the second SL DRX configuration from the second device, in response to the third message; and performing SL communication on the basis of the second SL DRX configuration”); and
in response to the second user equipment rejecting the configuration, transmitting, by the second user equipment, a first RRC message including information indicating rejecting the configuration, to the first user equipment (see abstract, “receiving a second message for rejecting the first SL DRX configuration from the second device”, also see claim 2. “…and the second message is an RRC message indicating that the sidelink re-establishment failed”).
As per claim 1, Park does not expressly teach in response to the second user equipment accepting the configuration, transmitting, by the second user equipment, the configuration that is accepted, to a base station.
Nevertheless, in the same art of Sidelink DRX configuring, Di Girolamo teaches in response to a receiving UE 203 (i.e., second user equipment) accepting a DRX configuration from a sending UE 201 (see Fig. 17, ref. 257/258 and ¶0230-0231, i.e., “UE 203 sends a confirmation message to UE”, read as at least an implicit acceptance), transmitting, by the second user equipment, the configuration that is accepted, to a base station (see Fig. 17, ref. 259 and ¶0231, i.e., “UE 203 may provide to its serving cell, the DRX configuration of UE 201”)(also see corresponding Fig. 15 of provisional application No. 62/947,906, filed on Dec. 13, 2019).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, prior to the earliest effective filing date of the claimed invention, to similarly send accepted DRX parameters to a serving cell/base station of a receiving UE. The obvious motivation for doing so would have been to notify the receiving UE’s serving cell/base station of scheduling limitations imposed by the DRX parameters (see Di Girolamo, ¶0231).
As per claim 1, the combination of Park and Di Girolamo does not expressly teach using a SidelinkUEinformation message to transmit the configuration information related to the configuration of discontinuous reception to the base station.
Nevertheless, in the same art of sidelink messaging, Kang teaches the use of a SidelinkUEinformation message to communicate sidelink configuration/preferences from a UE to a base station (see ¶0180-0181)(which corresponds to pp. 19 of priority Application No. KR 10-2020-0084597 (citing the machine translation, see PTO 892 attached), with a filing date of July 09, 2020).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, prior to the earliest effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of Park and Di Girolamo with the teachings of Kang to notify the receiving UE’s serving cell/base station of the DRX configuration (see Di Girolamo, ¶0231) using a SidelinkUEinformation message, as taught by Kang. The obvious motivation for doing so would have been to take advantage of existing Radio Resource Control (RRC) messages for transmitting the notification in Di Girolamo, as opposed to creating a new message or requiring additional signaling.
Alternatively, Kang suggests a finite number of predictable solutions for conveying DRX information to a base station (see ¶0180-0181, either using a SidelinkUEInformation message or a UEAssistanceInformation message). Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, prior to the earliest effective filing date of the claimed invention, to try using a SidelinkUEinformation message as taught by Kang to transmit the notification of the accepted DRX configuration to the receiving UE’s serving cell/base station (see Di Girolamo, ¶0231), based on an obvious to try rationale with a reasonable expectation of success (see MPEP §2143.I.E.).
Claims 5 and 6 are rejected under the same rationale as claim 1 since they recite substantially identical subject matter. Any differences between the claims do not result in patentably distinct claims and all of the limitations are taught by the above cited art.
Claims 3-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park, Di Girolamo, and Kang in further view of Yang (US 2024/0292485)(“Yang”).
As per claim 3, Park does not expressly teach transmitting by the second user equipment, a second RRC message including information indicating a discontinuous reception configuration determined by the second user equipment, to the first user equipment.
As per claim 4, Park does not expressly teach wherein second RRC message includes a plurality of configurations as the configuration for the discontinuous reception configuration determined by the second user equipment.
Nevertheless, in the same art of configuring DRX for sidelink connections, Yang teaches sending a second RRC message including information indicating a discontinuous reception configuration determined by a second user equipment (UE) to a first UE (see Fig. 2, ref. 203 and ¶0062), wherein second RRC message includes a plurality of configurations as the configuration for the discontinuous reception configuration determined by the second user equipment (see also ¶0058, where the DRX parameter may comprise a number of different DRX settings, e.g., DRX cycle, a paging frame offset, etc., read as a plurality of configurations).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, prior to the earliest effective filing date of Applicant’s claimed invention, to modify the operations of the second UE in Park based on the teachings of Yang for further communicating to the first UE a second RRC message including a plurality of configurations as the configuration for the discontinuous reception configuration determined by the second user equipment. The obvious motivation for doing so would have been to avoid any ambiguity or inconsistency between the first and second UEs when establishing DRX settings for sidelink communication in Park.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRENDAN HIGA whose telephone number is (571)272-5823. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM.
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/BRENDAN Y HIGA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2441
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